Gunmen kill four police operatives, woman in fresh attack in South-east

Gunmen have killed four police operatives in Imo State, South-east Nigeria.

The incident, PREMIUM TIMES gathered, occurred at about 6:30 p.m. on Monday along Owerri-Onitsha Road in Owerri, the state capital.

A shop owner in the area, Tony Onwumelu, told PREMIUM TIMES Monday night that the hoodlums attacked the operatives at their checkpoint in the area.

“Yes. The gunmen attacked the policemen at their checkpoint close to Blossom Hotel and killed four of them,” Mr Onwumelu said.

“They also shot at passers-by, but only one lady who used to do POS at the junction died at the spot. She was shot at close range,” he stated.

Another witness, who asked not to be named, said the attackers must have been enforcers of the illegal sit-at-home order, given their style of operation.

“Aside from the police people they killed, they were just shooting at people indiscriminately as if they wanted people to go home,” he said.

He lamented that the area had become a hotbed of gunmen attacks lately.

Video clip

A video clip, apparently recorded shortly after the attack, has been circulating on various WhatsApp groups.

In the clip, seen by PREMIUM TIMES, an unidentified woman, believed to be the slain POS operator, was lying on the ground in a pool of her blood.

A table and a set of plastic chairs – apparently used for her POS business – were seen close to her corpse.

Some distance away, the bodies of four police operatives could be seen lying on the road.

Two of the operatives were lying lifeless on the ground, while two other corpses were seen in their Hilux pickup truck.

One of them was in plain cloth.

The police spokesperson in Imo State, Henry Okoye, has confirmed the killing. He said in a statement on Monday that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was behind the attack.

The operatives were ambushed while on a routine patrol at Irete, at the Owerri-Onitsha Expressway, he said.

Mr Okoye said the Commissioner of Police in Imo, Aboki Danjuma, has condemned the killing of the operatives and the civilian, describing it as a “gruesome murder.”

The spokesperson said the police commissioner “has deployed the command’s Tactical Units with the available operational assets and intelligence to go all out in synergy with other security agencies and hunt down the hoodlums responsible for the attack”.

Increased attacks

Like other states in Nigeria’s South-east, security has deteriorated in Imo State, with frequent attacks by armed persons.

The attacks often target security agencies, government officials, and facilities.

READ ALSO: Again, gunmen kill police inspector, three others in South-east

The latest attack occurred exactly one month after gunmen killed six persons in Okigwe Local Government Area of the state.

The Nigerian government has accused IPOB of being responsible for the deadly attacks in the region. But, the group has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

IPOB is a group leading the agitation for an independent state of Biafra, which it wants carved out from the South-east and some parts of South-south Nigeria.